Almost every Canadian freelancer hears the same sentence at some point: "You don't need to worry about GST/HST until you hit thirty grand." That is roughly true, and the rounding errors in it are what get people reassessed. The CAD 30,000 figure is not an annual limit, it is not measured on the calendar year, and blowing past it in a single quarter has a very different consequence from drifting past it over twelve months.
This guide walks through the small supplier rule the way the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) actually applies it, which rate you charge a client in another province, what you can claim back, and when the Quick Method quietly pays for your accountant.
The small supplier rule in plain terms
You are a small supplier if your worldwide revenue from taxable supplies, plus the revenue of anyone associated with you, is CAD 30,000 or less both in a single calendar quarter and over the last four consecutive calendar quarters. While you are a small supplier you do not have to register for GST/HST, you do not charge it, and you cannot claim it back. The CRA sets this out on its When to register for and start charging the GST/HST page.
Three details trip people up. First, the CAD 30,000 is gross revenue, not profit. A designer who bills 34,000 and spends 9,000 on subcontractors has crossed the line, even though the bank balance says otherwise. Second, the four quarters are rolling, not a tax year. The window you test on 30 September 2026 covers 1 October 2025 through 30 September 2026. Third, it is worldwide. Invoices to a client in Austin or Berlin count.
The two tests that end your small supplier status
There are two ways to stop being a small supplier, and they have different effective dates. This is the part worth reading twice.
| What happened | When you stop being a small supplier | Effective date of registration |
|---|---|---|
| You exceed CAD 30,000 in a single calendar quarter | Immediately, on the sale that pushed you over | The day of that sale. You must charge GST/HST on that invoice, including the portion above 30,000 |
| You exceed CAD 30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters (but never in one quarter alone) | At the end of the month following the quarter in which you crossed the line | The day of your first taxable supply after you stop being a small supplier |
| Registration deadline (either case) | Within 29 days of your effective date of registration | |
The second row is the one that saves you money. Say your rolling four quarters cross 30,000 somewhere in the quarter ending 30 June 2026. You remain a small supplier through July 2026, and you begin charging tax on your first invoice from 1 August 2026. You do not have to go back and add tax to the invoices that took you over.
The first row is brutal by comparison. If a single quarter produces 31,500 of billings, the invoice that broke 30,000 needed tax on it. If you already sent it clean, you either eat the tax out of your own margin or you go back to the client and ask for it.
What counts toward the CAD 30,000 and what does not
Count in: all taxable supplies, including zero-rated ones. This is the detail freelancers with foreign clients get wrong. Services exported to a non-resident client are usually zero-rated, meaning you charge 0%, but they are still taxable supplies and they still count toward the threshold (see GST/HST Memorandum 2.2, Small suppliers). A Toronto developer with 45,000 of US client revenue and nothing domestic is not a small supplier, even though the tax collected would be zero.
Leave out: exempt supplies (most residential rent, most health and childcare services), the sale of capital property, and goodwill. Also leave out revenue from employment. A T4 salary is not a taxable supply.
One more exception: the CAD 30,000 threshold does not exist for taxi and commercial ride-sharing drivers. They must register from their first fare.
GST/HST rates by province in 2026
Once registered, the rate you charge depends on the province of supply, not on where you sit. Current CRA rates from Charge and collect the GST/HST:
| Province or territory | GST/HST rate | Separate provincial tax you do not administer |
|---|---|---|
| Alberta, NWT, Nunavut, Yukon | 5% GST | None |
| British Columbia | 5% GST | 7% PST |
| Manitoba | 5% GST | 7% RST |
| Saskatchewan | 5% GST | 6% PST |
| Quebec | 5% GST | 9.975% QST (Revenu Québec) |
| Ontario | 13% HST | None |
| Nova Scotia | 14% HST (since 1 April 2025) | None |
| New Brunswick | 15% HST | None |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 15% HST | None |
| Prince Edward Island | 15% HST | None |
Nova Scotia dropped its provincial portion from 10% to 9% on 1 April 2025, taking the HST from 15% to 14%. If you still have 15% hard-coded in an invoicing template for Halifax clients, fix it.
For services, the place-of-supply rules generally point to the business address of the recipient that you obtain in the ordinary course of business. A copywriter in Calgary invoicing a Toronto agency charges 13% HST, not 5% GST, even though she never leaves Alberta. Same copywriter invoicing a Vancouver client charges 5%. Our GST/HST calculator handles the add-on and back-out maths for each province if you would rather not do it by hand.
Quebec is its own animal. QST at 9.975% has a separate CAD 30,000 small supplier test administered by Revenu Québec, so a Quebec freelancer typically registers twice.
Registering, and what your invoices must show
You register through Business Registration Online or by phone. You need a business number, your effective date, your estimated annual revenue and your fiscal year end. It takes minutes, and the GST/HST number is usually issued on the spot.
Your invoices then need to carry enough information for the client to claim their own input tax credit. For sales of CAD 100 to 499.99 you need your business name, the date, the total, and your GST/HST registration number. For sales of CAD 500 or more, add the client's name, the terms of payment, and a description of the work. Show the tax either as a separate line or as a clear statement that the total includes GST/HST. Do not split HST into federal and provincial parts. See Receipts and invoices.
Input tax credits: the upside of registering
An input tax credit (ITC) is the GST/HST you paid on business purchases, recovered against the tax you collected. Software subscriptions, a laptop, an accountant's fee, coworking rent, professional dues, your business share of a phone bill: all of it carries recoverable tax once you are registered. Two rules to remember. Meals and entertainment are limited to 50%, mirroring the income tax treatment. And you generally have four years to claim an ITC, counted from the due date of the return for the period in which you could first have claimed it, so a missed receipt is not automatically lost. Keep the records for six years.
Note also that the ITC is claimed on the tax, not the expense. A CAD 2,000 laptop in Ontario carries CAD 260 of HST. The 260 comes back through your GST/HST return, and the 2,000 is deducted (via capital cost allowance) on your self-employed income tax return. They are two separate recoveries and you claim both.
The Quick Method: remit less than you collect
The Quick Method lets you remit a flat percentage of your tax-included billings instead of tracking ITCs on operating expenses. For a freelancer with low overheads (a laptop, some software, no inventory) it is usually worth real money, because the flat rate assumes you spend far more than you do.
You are eligible if your worldwide taxable supplies, including GST/HST, were no more than CAD 400,000 in any four consecutive fiscal quarters over the last five. You elect using Form GST74, and you must stay on it for at least a year.
Remittance rates for a service business supplying in the same province as its permanent establishment:
| Where the supply is made | GST/HST you charge | Quick Method remittance rate |
|---|---|---|
| Non-participating provinces (AB, BC, MB, SK, QC, NT, NU, YT) | 5% | 3.6% |
| Ontario | 13% | 8.8% |
| Nova Scotia (periods beginning after 31 March 2025) | 14% | 9.4% |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI | 15% | 10.0% |
On top of the rate, you get a 1% credit on the first CAD 30,000 of tax-included eligible supplies each fiscal year, worth up to CAD 300.
Two catches. Certain professions are barred outright: accountants, bookkeepers, financial consultants, lawyers, notaries, actuaries and audit or tax consultants cannot use the Quick Method. And you give up ITCs on operating expenses, though you keep them on capital purchases such as computers, vehicles and equipment.
Worked example: an Ontario freelancer at CAD 90,000
Maya is a self-employed UX designer in Toronto. Fiscal year 2026: CAD 90,000 billed to Ontario clients, plus 13% HST of CAD 11,700 collected. Her operating expenses carrying HST are CAD 12,000 plus CAD 1,560 of HST. She also buys a CAD 2,000 laptop plus CAD 260 HST.
Regular method
- HST collected: 11,700
- ITCs on expenses: 1,560
- ITC on laptop: 260
- Net tax to remit: 11,700 − 1,820 = CAD 9,880
Quick Method
- Tax-included supplies: 90,000 × 1.13 = 101,700 (well under the 400,000 cap)
- 101,700 × 8.8% = 8,949.60
- Less 1% credit on the first 30,000: −300.00
- Less ITC on the laptop (capital property, still claimable): −260.00
- Net tax to remit: CAD 8,389.60
The Quick Method leaves CAD 1,490.40 in her account. It is not entirely free money: the amount she collects but does not remit is business income for income tax purposes, so she reports the extra on her T2125 and pays tax on it at her marginal rate. At a 30% combined marginal rate she keeps roughly CAD 1,043 of it. Still a clear win for two lines of arithmetic, and it repeats every year.
The maths flips if you have heavy taxable costs: a videographer renting gear and paying subcontractors 40,000 a year would recover more through ITCs than the flat rate hands back.
Filing periods, deadlines and instalments
Your reporting period is assigned by revenue: annual up to CAD 1.5 million, quarterly above 1.5 million up to 6 million, monthly above 6 million. Practically every freelancer is an annual filer, and you can elect to file more often if you would rather not sit on a year's tax.
A sole proprietor who is an annual filer with a 31 December year end gets a split deadline: the return is due 15 June, but any balance owing is due 30 April. Missing the April payment date accrues interest even though the return is not late. See Reporting requirements and deadlines.
If your net tax was CAD 3,000 or more in the prior year and you expect at least that again, the CRA will want quarterly instalments, each due one month after the end of your fiscal quarter. Maya, at CAD 8,389.60 of net tax, is firmly in instalment territory for the following year.
Should you register before you hit CAD 30,000?
Voluntary registration is allowed, and it is the right call more often than freelancers assume.
Register early if your clients are GST/HST-registered businesses. They claim back whatever you charge, so the tax is invisible to them, while you start recovering the tax on your own laptop, software and accounting fees. Register early too if you are in a start-up phase with big taxable purchases and little revenue, because ITCs can produce an actual refund cheque.
Hold off if you sell to consumers or to exempt bodies who cannot recover the tax. Adding 13% to a 1,200 photography package that competitors are pricing at 1,200 flat is a real competitive cost. And hold off if you value the simplicity: an unregistered freelancer files one tax return a year and nothing else.
Whichever way you go, run the numbers rather than the folklore. Model the tax on a typical invoice with the GST/HST calculator, then check what the retained Quick Method margin does to your income tax and CPP bill with the self-employed tax calculator. The gap between "roughly right" and "actually right" here is normally worth four figures a year.
This article is general information, not tax advice for your situation. Rates verified against CRA guidance current for 2026.